


Aliit ori'shya tal'din

by Heart_Of_Steel_And_Fandoms



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Din Djarin Needs a Hug, Din Djarin; accidental co-parent with the Force itself, Din accidentally becomes king, Din did so well with the first kid, Din kicking serious ass while holding the cutest kid in existence is everything to me, Gen, Good Parent Din Djarin, Grogu | Baby Yoda Being a Little Shit, Introspection, Mandalorian Adoption (Star Wars), Mandalorian Culture (Star Wars), So i've added both more ass-kicking and more children, This Is The Way, You're Welcome, and also adoptive father to a bunch of force-sensitives, and just nudged the force-sensitives in his direction, and yes that was the initial thought behind this entire fic why do you ask, but an adorable one, honestly it started like that but I'm way too many words deep in this to keep pretending, maybe crack?, settle in for the long haul, some angst some hurt mostly found family, that the force decided he was the new go-to for any and all children in need
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-17 17:53:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29596521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heart_Of_Steel_And_Fandoms/pseuds/Heart_Of_Steel_And_Fandoms
Summary: Family is more than blood.A fix-it set about five minutes before the end of season 2, where through quick thinking, a dash of luck, and Din's blaster, everyone (except Gideon, but nobody will miss him) survives the cruiser without any traumatic departures or reveals.Featuring people caring about the many Imperial bases that seem to be scattered across the galaxy hiring bounty hunters like it's No Big Deal, a dash of Force-adored and mandated father Din Djarin unable to have a mission go as planned, and Mandalorian culture explored because they deserve Better, damn it.Tags will be added as we go and spoilers in the end notes because I'm at a point about 10 thousand words longer than I expected and I haven't even hit the middle of the plot, so. This is the Way.
Comments: 27
Kudos: 68





	1. The Recovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clan Mudhorn heals, becomes official, and does more than their fair share.

When asked much later, Din would insist, until the day he died, that it was all Boba’s fault.

Of course, that wasn’t _exactly_ true.

***

After Gideon’s death and their subsequent departure from the cruiser, which Bo Katan pushed almost immediately to hyperspace the second they were on Slave 1, Boba Fett dropped them off on Nevarro with a nod and his personal comm details.

Din hadn’t put Grogu down for a second the entire flight back; it was only once the kid was safe again in his arms that he was finally able to breathe and realise exactly what it was he’d almost lost. The kid never complained, seemingly happy to tuck himself into his elbow and fall asleep, using Din's cape as a makeshift blanket clutched between tiny green hands.

It was in the early hours of that morning, resting in a spare room with the door firmly locked, that Din finally said the words.

The entire year they’d been on the run, he’d never dared do the rites. At first, they’d been too busy staying alive, and he’d had no intention of keeping the kid longer than the first safe planet and open pair of arms that could take better care of him than any bounty hunter.

Later, after the Armourer quested him to return the child to his own kind, it had seemed the worst kind of masochism to get even more attached. He’d known he’d have to hand the kid over sooner or later, and the _Gai Bal Manda_ was firm in its unwavering finality. To be a parent was to be a parent until your death, no matter the change of circumstances.

Then the kid was stolen, and the fear of breaking his own heart seemed the flimsiest of excuses for not putting to words what was already true. Even if, down the line, they found a Jedi and the kid chose that path and Din had to say goodbye, the kid was his by heart if not yet by Creed.

Din didn't know much about the Jedi, but he knew his own Way, and avoiding the official rites any longer would be nothing but abject cowardice on his part. Parenthood was something he'd never imagined for himself, but to accept the child as his formal foundling gave Grogu security, community, and protection if anything were to happen to Din.

In truth, even if the logical reasons were removed, Din would still want this. The fear of one day losing the kid to the Jedi was vastly eclipsed by the recent terror of having almost lost him for good, and he owed it to them both to be honest.

So it was there, sitting on the dirt floor in the town that started it all, that Din looked down into the sleepy eyes of the child he’d do anything for, and called his name.

The kid’s head tilted in response, a novelty of reaction that had yet to grow old, big ears curving down like they’d fall over under their own weight, and Din could taste the salt of his own tears as he reached up and pulled his helmet off.

It clanged as it hit the ground.

Theirs was a clan of two; by Creed, once he said the rites, Grogu was the only other living creature in the universe to whom he could show his face. 

Still, it felt like an act of sacrilege. Din had never had a foundling, nor a spouse, and the last person to see his face had been the Armorer. She’d forged his first helmet when he'd joined the Fighting Corps, nothing more than a boy, and he still remembered the shadow passing over his eyes and the heaviness of the beskar settling against his skin. 

Well. Mayfield and some dead Imps had seen his face since, he supposed, but emergencies hardly counted. Not like this would.

His clan had always been an empty one, and to invite another in was nothing short of terrifying.

The kid’s eyes went wide at seeing his bare face for the first time. He cooed softly into the silence, tiny claws reaching up as though he knew the importance of the moment, a wondrous, curious croon as he grabbed at the scruff on his chin.

Din bowed his head until their foreheads touched, and felt more terror and wonder and worry and love then he’d ever thought himself capable of.

“Ni kyr'tayl gai sa'ad.”

 _I know your name as my child_.

Grogu gurgled at him, eyes never leaving his face, seeming delighted at the sound of his voice without a modulator. He flailed his arms before coming back to rest them on Din’s cheeks, sleepiness vanished in the excitement.

“Ba!” Was the response, joyous and adoring.

Din laughed aloud, and the sound shocked them both, though Grogu recovered first with a squeal of delight before patting his face again as though trying to recreate it.

Din let him explore, a growing irrepressible smile at the coos upon the discoveries of his mustache and ears and hair, only grimacing slightly when Grogu grabbed fistfuls of the latter and tugged with all his might.

Even the grimace was worth excitement, Grogu pausing in his search to stare up at him again. Din didn’t know how much the kid’s magic had been sensing in him before, since they’d never really had a problem with communication, but maybe this new focus was just Grogu putting those feelings to expressions he could see and tug at with green claws.

Eventually, the kid tired himself out, his yawn threatening to split his face as he snuggled back into Beskar like it was a soft blanket and not harsh, cold metal. He seemed happy to burble at him from curled up over his chest plate, waiting every few seconds for Din to respond to his rambles and looking up at him in turns as if to check he was still paying attention.

Din wouldn’t have been able to look away even if he’d wanted to. There was nothing in the galaxy worth more.

They fell asleep like that, one small hand tucked beneath his Beskar to rest against the skin of his neck as it bent at an angle that would surely hurt in the morning. Din had never slept better.

***

Cara told him the New Republic was delighted by the intelligence Gideon’s cruiser had provided, despite how unfortunate it was that Gideon himself had preferred death over capture and they hadn’t gotten to him in time.

They’d shared a look over that, a heavy thing that Din knew spoke of her acceptance of what he’d done and why, if not necessarily her forgiveness. She’d said also that Bo Katan had stayed true to her word, sending everything they could scrounge from the ship’s systems to her, a days' long data stream that kept them up all hours of the night trying to shift through it.

Din had sworn his help, and almost instantly regretted it when a half dozen New Republic officers landed on Nevarro not a day later with empty tents and data pads and determined expressions. The New Republic was salivating at the acquisition of the biggest treasure trove of Imp information they’d gotten since the end of the war, even overlooking the questionable means and the fact that Bo Katan hadn’t waited to be officially granted the cruiser in recompense before taking it off the grid.

Two hours into the first day, Cara had taken pity on him and the officers and let him hide out with the kid in the back room, Grogu happy to have some company to play with and distract. He slowly made his way through years of logs and ship reports, looking for anything of use. 

To his surprise, almost all of it was purely administrative- travel logs, expense reports, delegation of ship repairs and onboard duties- though even they occasionally took on a more sinister undertone when he looked at the specifics. Prisoner transfer files with no end destination; the sudden surge in ship-board labour after passing Hutt-owned planets; requisition demands in the outer rim that were never followed by a credit cost.

Usually, though, he was left only with the monotonous routine papertrail all military personnel adored- the hardest part was just familiarising himself with the codes and language.

Din didn’t mind; it was thoughtless work, and gave both him and Grogu time to heal. It also offered him the unique opportunity to start planning his next moves, since Cara had implied the New Republic was planning on calling in some underworld back-up to help find, scout and report on the bases and planets the cruiser was referenced as having visited to resupply.

Din couldn’t see the pay of New Republic glorified scouts being particularly great, but it would keep him and the kid afloat and out of the more direct lines of fire for at least a few weeks once they finally left Nevarro. Not to mention that every Imp out of the field was one more person who couldn’t hurt his kid.

Cara had teased him that he’d gone legitimate, to which he could only shoot back that he’d thought he better follow her example, her being such a good role-model for the kid and all.

But none of that was what kept them on Nevarro for almost a month. Not Cara and her friendship, nor the New Republic and their plans, nor even his lack of a ship could have prolonged their stay had there been any danger or risk for the kid involved.

No, what mattered was this; in the wake of Gideon’s death, there would be no more hunters after them. Tracking fobs they’d found in the old Imp base confirmed it, only reading _Bounty Unavailable_ when they’d turned them on, and a target with no money or sponsor attached to the job was a target not worth anyone’s time.

Din didn’t know how widespread knowledge of the kid’s existence and powers had been, and the one negative of Gideon’s death was that there was no way of finding out, but the cruiser’s systems log and comms were free to dig through and use to form some educated guesses.

Greef and Cara helped him, but only them- he didn’t trust the New Republic, keeping both himself and the kid out of their way and out of their knowledge, and even Cara with her shiny Sheriff’s badge didn’t seem particularly eager to convince him otherwise. 

Grogu stayed in their room or at Din’s side and, usually, both at once. It was in that first week of mutual clinginess that Din started telling him the stories all foundlings must know- the stories of the Mando’ade, all the ones he could remember from his own classes as a boy or from when the ade used to huddle in front of the forge, wide-eyed at the Armorer’s tales.

It began as a way to ease them both into sleep in the evening, to distract himself from the nightmares where he didn’t make it to the cruiser in time or Fennec had been just a little slower on the bridge, and to comfort the kid when he showed his first distaste for enclosed spaces.

They’d taken a walk along the dunes, and Din had found himself talking about the very first Mandalorians and how they’d settled on a small grassy planet with one sun and no sentient life. He’d pointed it out to Grogu in the sky, the tiniest white dot that he’d learned how to find no matter where he was in the galaxy, and Grogu had listened with both ears perked up and a hand wrapped around Din’s thumb.

Stories- of past Mand’alors, of the planet and history they now shared, of the Resol’nare and it’s importance- were some of the first things he himself had learned along his path to taking the Creed. To share them now with his foundling, despite his lack of skill as a story-teller, despite the losses of both the Purge and many from his own tribe, was a bittersweet kind of healing.

He even began some teachings in Mando’a- only the most basic, the most fundamental. He drew out the symbols in the dirt in place of the traditional word cards, a Mandalorian in armour with a child beside him. “Buir.” He’d said, pointing to the adult, and “Adiik.” when tapping the drawing of the child, and Grogu had stared at him and the drawings in turn, enraptured, like he did for all of the lessons no matter the content.

The exact meaning might not be making it through, but Din was certain the importance was; maybe the tone of his voice or the Force told the kid to pay attention, but every night after taking dinner in their room when they left the town behind for darkness and solitude, he’d be faced with big, beseeching eyes and reaching hands that stayed until he’d start talking.

The lessons were never very long, but they tended to finish the same way; Din, singing the kid the same rhyme all ade learn to help them remember the six tenets.

_Ba'jur bal beskar'gam,  
Ara'nov, aliit,  
Mando'a bal Mand'alor—  
An vencuyan mhi._

Self-defense, clan, education- these Din could provide and teach, or, as in the case of self-defense, Grogu had already demonstrated somewhat of a knack for, as well as being too young for the traditional training.

Armour, tribe and leader might be beyond them for now, but Grogu deserved everything Din had had and more. The kid was as Mandalorian as Din himself until he turned of age and decided otherwise.

After that first week of recovery and newness, it was a peaceful kind of restless that was Din’s company; there was still so much to do and plan for, but he’d become used to being on the run and staying one place too long made his neck itch.

He held out for three more weeks; teaching and, later, losing at cu'bikad to Cara, letting the kid eat up to his eyeballs in frogs, cleaning and recleaning his Beskar until it shone, but one day he woke up and the itching was so bad Cara could read it off him through his helmet and the brace of his shoulders.

Even Grogu seemed ill at ease, pointing to the sky during their nightly walks, and looking wildly around the shipyard as if searching for something every time they passed.

When he told Cara they had to leave, she’d understood, even if her smile had been tinged with sadness. Despite all her claims to the contrary, she’d come to adore Grogu and he her, and she’d been on a mission to get him to say her name for weeks.

Din half-suspected Grogu was dragging it out on purpose, knowing, as he most certainly did, that Cara and Greef had a bet for what would be the kid’s first word, and were alternatively plying Grogu with attention and treats in the hopes of swaying him to their side and insisting the other person not do the same.

Grogu was playing both sides unbeknownst to anyone but Din, who’d borne the brunt of too many mischiefs to fall for the innocent act the kid preferred. Din was terribly proud of him for it, in all honesty, and didn’t have the heart to tell him to stop, so he’d mostly been ignoring it and hoping that neither of the other two ever found out.

Grogu could understand just fine, and if he chose to speak, it would be when he was ready. Din had no problem understanding most of what he meant anyway.

When they decided to leave, Greef went so far as to lend him a ship, with the voiced expectation that he run some half-priced jobs, return it once he’d acquired his own, and bring the kid back frequently to ensure he’d been properly taking care of him.

Grogu had that effect on people; Din suspected privately it was the cuteness and the tendency to get into trouble. He seemed to collect friends no matter where they went. It was a useful skill, even if it meant the kid got his heart broken in the leaving.

The day they left, Din had packed their things on reflex, surprised at how much they’d managed to collect in such a short span of time. The small trinkets they’d accumulated from the markets and the weapons he’d salvaged from the cruiser and found in empty bases since, along with his Beskar staff and his sen-tra, the jetpack fueled up and familiar after weeks of early morning drills.

He hesitated only once, right at the end when everything else had been settled in the ship or given away. Bo Katan had refused to take the darksaber despite his insistence, but hadn’t attacked him for the right to it like he’d half expected her to on the bridge of the cruiser. He’d walked away with it, and she’d shot him a look that promised a resolution at some future point when they were both uninjured and the story of it wouldn’t reflect poorly on her.

He imagined that Gideon’s death and his own part in it played a role, as a vengeance kill for the Great Purge wrote better songs than killing one of her own.

Despite what ancient law said, Din had no desire to be Mand’alor. He’d never been on the ancestral planet, nor been involved in any of the many civil wars.

From his time with Bo Katan and Boba Fett both it appeared he had much to learn about the Mando’ade and his own place among them, as well as that of his tribe. Din was a bounty hunter, a provider, and, now, a _Buir_ , but he was no king.

In the end, he tucked the saber into his belt, as much so that he could find a way to give it back to her as because leaving any weapon that could later save his or his kid’s life seemed unwise, and went to collect Grogu from his adoring fans.

The ship Greef had lent them, an old, patched together pre-imperial thing, was smaller than the Razor Crest, but not by so much that it was uncomfortable for their clan of two. Din filled the storage with more supplies then they could possibly need for a month, and they said their goodbyes in the dying light of Nevarro’s sun an hour’s ride from the town.

Cara tweaked Grogu’s ear fondly and gave Din a back-slapping hug, and made him promise to take care of himself and the little one before she let go. Greef nodded at him and shook the kid’s hand with one finger, and Din elected to ignore the water in the man’s eyes as he did.

He took the pilot’s chair and settled Grogu on his lap with the little silver ball he’d so enjoyed, the last remnant from the Razor Crest that wasn’t the two of them. He let the kid wave out the window, made sure he was secure and tucked in with a blanket once he was done, and did his last engine checks. He’d run a few short practice flights with the ship to get familiar with it before packing, but their journey now would be a long one- the outer rim was crawling with suspected Imp activity, so Din set their course for a few systems over and settled back into his chair.

Grogu fell asleep watching the stars, and Din felt another knot of the tension he’d been carrying for months smoothe out.

***

That first planet, Oosalon, set an unfortunate precedent- what were supposed to be quick in-and-out recon missions became days’ long and troublesome, though they never quite became overtly dangerous.

On Oosalon, the Imp base was hidden beneath a mountain, and only luck and a wandering Grogu led Din right to the only entrance during their second day of searching the otherwise uninhabited planet. He made quick work of the troopers stationed outside and set himself up on a nearby ridge to wait their reinforcements out and get a better idea of the base’s size.

The New Republic had been curt with their requirements for the job- find the base or bases, log them, leave. Anything else would be in addition, and likely unpaid, but Din didn’t like the idea of leaving without learning more. Though Oosalon wasn’t visited frequently enough by the cruiser to have been heavily involved with Gideon’s plans, more than half the reason he’d taken the job was to protect his kid, and a few extra hours to figure out the base’s size and function wasn’t about to put him out.

The Imps didn’t make him wait long; the base’s only defense was a single squadron, sloppy and out of practice, and even Grogu had been more interested in playing in the rocks rather than watch them run around looking for the enemy and shooting at the shadows of overhanging rocks.

It was only when something large passed overhead with a deafening screech to land on and crush one of the troopers beneath its claws that Din looked down at his feet to discover that what he’d assumed to be local plants were actually _feathers_ , and that the rocks Grogu had been entertaining himself with resembled nothing more than eggs.

Din didn’t wait to be proven right- he simply grabbed the kid with his free arm and ran for the open door as the troopers shot at the air ineffectively and yelled at him when he came into view, too busy keeping the huge wing-spanned creature from ripping them apart to aim at him.

Din shut the door behind him and, still holding Grogu, sighed. So much for surveillance. Resigning himself to being more hands-on, Din headed down the stone hallway with his blaster raised in front. The last, late, lucky trooper to turn the corner got a blast to the shoulder and a knock to the head before being de-blastered, dragged to a supply closet and shoved inside.

Locating the remaining Imps- Ensigns and Lieutenants to the one- was easy. Stripping them of their weapons and locking the holding cells behind them was even easier.

Din spent a few hours wandering the base to ensure he’d gotten everyone, and came across only living quarters, training decks, and storage rooms in his search. A forgotten base in the empire’s defeat, then. Could have survived a decade more without detection with the food they had saved away. Too bad for them that Grogu liked chasing insects right into the door of their base.

Din used the base’s computer to send their location and a brief message to Cara, before hovering just inside the exit to make sure the creatures had gone. They had, along with most of the troopers, and they took the long way around to the ship to avoid the nest they’d accidentally disturbed.

Carajam was worse than Tatooine for sand getting into his Beskar, and it had none of the appeal of friendly lawlessness. The Imps had taken over the second largest city, Gabnet, and were holding it with only a handful of blasters, control over the water supply, and the kidnapped wife of the planet’s resident war-lord.

6 days, 3 siege attempts and 1 well-aimed jab with his spear into a grey uniform later, Grogu was still grumpy at having to wear a covering so he didn’t get sunburned and Din had to practically sneak away from the celebratory feast thrown in his honour amid offers of gifts, wines and marriage.

The war-lord had slapped him on the back with a grin after she’d passionately reunited with her wife, and called him a, “Damn good fighter, a-huh!”, before offering him a position in the guard Din had had to refuse. She’d taken the refusal good-naturedly, piled an armful of silks onto him as payment, and ordered another round of drinks that met with raucous cheering.

On the ship, Din again sent Cara a message- much abbreviated and leaving out the part about scaling the side of the sand-keep in the middle of the night with only his daggers to brace him so that the Imps wouldn’t hear him coming- before they took off, the new silks and other gifts secured in the cargo bay.

Alpinn was a far simpler job, thank the Ka’ra; it was a small Imp stronghold set up over what looked like some kind of mining operation, only two shifts of guards and a handful of technicians digging in the bright white mineral that made up the planet’s ground, which Grogu, for some unfathomable reason, adored. 

A day of surveillance, an hour to liberate them of their weapons, tools and communication equipment, a minute to send Cara their location, and they were off, with a few rocks’ worth of extra cargo that the kid enjoyed bashing together and throwing at the wall to hear them clang.

The squeals almost made the resulting headache worth it, but Din kept careful eye to make sure Grogu didn’t suddenly decide he wanted to _taste_ what so enamoured him.

Apart from one almost mishap in take-off and Din then finding himself in the unprecedented situation of having to find a comfortable storage place for _rocks_ as Grogu shot down all his best efforts, once his new toys were wrapped in a blanket and tucked in the bunk things went smoothly.

On Panna, the Imp stronghold turned out to be a smuggler’s front that combined stolen uniforms, deserters and some well-placed transmissions hacking to present a convincing attempt at Imp remnants. Din might have fallen for it as quickly as the Imps themselves did, were it not for the Mandalorian he scoped arriving with a shuttle full of unmarked spice shipment.

Past experience had taught him not to assume that everyone in the galaxy wearing Mandalorian armour was one; but finding out more would demand a conversation.

Arranging a meeting would have proved somewhat more of a challenge than it did, had it not been for the fact that even as he saw the other Mandalorian, the other Mandalorian saw _him_.

Din didn’t necessarily enjoy having a blaster aimed at his head, but it did mean it wasn’t aimed at his kid. Down the barrel of his own blaster, he took in his opponent. She was dressed head to toe in faded, black-painted Beskar, silver stripes at the shoulder and thigh to symbolise clan and a helmet that had seen better days.

They stared at each other in silence, surrounded by the forest she’d cornered him in.

Grogu’s presence as a foundling and his curious, unfrightened cooing as he looked between them went a long way to get them lowering their weapons, and a brief exchange in Mando’a to verify their clans and Creed finished the job as they packed away their blasters, keeping a careful distance all the same as they sat around the fire to talk.

The choice not to remove her helmet seemed one more due to caution than religion, and her story confirmed it. They didn’t exchange names, but Din gathered that he was the first Mando the other had seen apart from herself since before the Purge, and that she’d been running with the same band of anti-imperial smugglers since before the rebellion even took it’s baby steps.

“We were on a job nearby when news of the New Republic reached us. It must have hit this base around the same time, because we caught an Imp distress signal about insurrection within the ranks and came down to see what we could scavenge. We ended up staying, took in the deserters, started running this little operation, and haven’t left since.”

Din had been in many different sectors and heard every kind of story, but he’d never come across anything quite like theirs, and told her so. She shrugged, beskar clinking against itself, and offered him a place to stay for the night.

The smugglers clearly didn’t know what to make of the sudden appearance of a second Mandalorian and his tiny green son, but they accepted his presence cheerily enough once the initial postering failed to make him anything but amused.

Din, despite having met more of his people in the last year than most others in the galaxy could say for their lifetime, still found the other a shock.

After the Great Purge, their tribe had been a shadow of its former self, left only with those fortunate enough to escape the initial violence from the Imperials across the galaxy and those, like Din, who’d been on a job and only returned to the covert later to hear about the massacre. Din hadn’t been there to see the purge itself, but he’d seen and experienced the after-effects.

They’d believed themselves to be the last; Boba Fett, Bo Katan and her band of believers had proved them wrong on that front, but four more did not a people make.

But this other Mando made him wonder how many of his people there truly were left; scattered, hidden, afraid to reach out and be found or worse yet find nothing, terrified and certain they too were the last- it shouldn’t have, but it gave him hope.

Even a terrified, traumatised people were an alive people, and were therefore more than any of them had expected.

He wasn’t alone in the sentiment. The other Mando demanded he speak at length about his covert, about the others he’d met, about Bo Katan and her goal to retake and rebuild their ancestral home, and she’d delighted in Grogu despite confirming she’d never had a foundling of her own. Grogu eventually got bored of the attention and wandered back to him with reaching arms, but settled when he had the silver ball and Din’s idle hand to play with.

They did end up staying that night, and the next, and it made Din ache for the covert he’d yet to find again. He hadn’t, at the time, truly been able to appreciate Boba Fett or Bo-Katan for what they represented, but with Grogu unhunted at his side and the comfort of certain jobs in their future, Din finally let himself miss being with his own people while in the company of one of them.

The Armorer had said that some of their covert had made it out, and he believed her; while finding the Jedi was still his quest, it was proving more difficult than expected, and they had time now where before every minute counted. Perhaps once they’d saved enough for a ship, they could go searching.

Din had been the face of his tribe on Nevarro, and knew many of their tricks and codes. Their safety lay in their secrecy, but their strength lay in their ability to find each other across the galaxy.

Before they left Panna, Din and the other Mando exchanged comm details, names, and promises to get in touch if the need arose or they found more of their people. They shared more in common than just a Creed, it appeared- Ary’d seemed invigorated by his existence and his arrival, and even as they were taking their leave she’d begun packing to go.

“If your tribe made it, others could have too. Maybe even- well. I’ve waited in fear for almost a decade, and lived apart from our people for far longer. If they can be found, I will find them. If what you told me about Mandalore is true, then soon we will have a home once more, and I intend to help get us there.”

He’d quieted the part of himself that wanted desperately to go with her, and wished her jate'kara with their forearms clasped. As a parting gift, and in exchange for his stories, she gave him some of the spices from her last trade, and pointed out those which were most similar to the ones he’d have eaten growing up in the tribe.

Spices were a rarity for him, and he’d grown used to the bland tasting nutrient bars that made up most of his diet- the opportunity to taste again the flavours of his adolescence was a rare one, and he knew Ary was aware of how much it meant to him to have that chance. She’d no doubt been in similar situations in the years since she’d left.

Mandalorian cuisine tended to run hot and draluram, and it had to have been before Grogu when Din had tasted it last.

Once back in the familiar hull of the ship and halfway to their next planet, Din sent Cara a holo to tell her what he’d found out, and to pass on the message that the base's residents would be happy to continue their Imp facade and were willing to trade information for being left alone.

He’d received one in the meantime, merely a confirmation of his last three jobs and an invitation to stop doing the Republic’s job for them before they even got on-world, though it was said with a conspiratorial smile that told Din she approved and was even slightly jealous.

They didn’t make it to their next planet. Boba Fett sent him a holo with news of a job Din couldn’t refuse.


	2. The Job

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clan Mudhorn visits old friends, takes on a new job, and meets their clients.

Tatooine, when they landed, was as welcoming as ever, though Peli did not seem a fan of his current transport.

“Mando! You’re back, and in one piece. Dunno which I’m more surprised by. But _what_ are you _flying_?”

Din didn’t have time to explain before Grogu followed him down the ramp and eclipsed the mechanic’s attention.

“And there’s my little womp-frog! How’s this mean old _Murishani_ been treating you?”

Grogu burbled a response at her, waving an arm in greeting before moving to stand by Din’s feet and raise his arms imperiously in the universal request to be lifted, and Peli listened with the utmost seriousness.

“No! He did? Oh, you’ve just got to tell me everything!”

Grogu got louder in response, short screeches intermixed with dashes of sound that could have almost been words in a language Din wasn’t familiar with, and for a moment he genuinely worried about what the kid was telling her. They hadn’t exactly had it easy since their last pitstop on the desert planet.

Peli kept up the one-sided conversation, and Din reminded himself that despite his panic she couldn’t _actually_ understand the kid. Din had done his fair share of humouring Grogu in the weeks since the cruiser, as Grogu seemed to come to the steady conclusion that the only times he wanted to be silent were when he was sleeping, eating, or attempting to hunt frogs.

Most of his waking moments now were full of his kid’s curious, demanding or contented sounds, and though Din did sometimes miss the peace, his overwhelming reaction was amused wonder, and once Grogu had figured that out there was no going back.

At the sight of little green arms still held up in request, Din gave in and scooped Grogu up into his chest, a move which always caused delight and usually ended in Din carrying the kid for longer than he should while being what Cara had affectionately termed, “a complete push-over”.

Peli was familiar with the manipulations of the young if her fond, exasperated smile was any indication.

“You’ve just got him wrapped around your little finger, don’t you?” She asked rhetorically, amused, and Din knew she wasn’t talking to him.

Grogu chirped in response before nestling into his hold, big eyes peering over the fabric of his coat in the very picture of innocence.

Peli shook her head, but the laugh she gave after betrayed her. 

Over a game of sabacc, Din gave her a much-edited version of what had happened since last they met, finishing with the New Republic’s request for him to report back on suspected Imp strongholds.

Grogu played with the droids while they spoke, occasionally wandering over to point to one of the cards in Din’s hand and babble at him until he played it. Thankfully, they were only playing for a handful of credits. Very few of the kid’s gambits played off.

“So that explains the ship, then. Doesn’t much explain why you’ve stopped here. Despite being a pile of bantha- uh,” She glanced at Grogu, a perfected slide-and-away that reminded Din, suddenly and viciously, of his own mother when she’d almost cursed around him as a boy, “Fodder, it’s in the most decent condition of any ship you’ve dropped in my yard before. So you’re not here for my amazing skills with a solder.”

Ignorant of the heart wrench she’d caused him, Peli pierced him with a knowing stare.

Din didn’t try to deny it, even if he himself didn’t like what he had to ask. But he couldn’t bring the kid where he was going in good conscience, not if there was another option. Peli was a familiar unknown, and close enough to be reassuring to the part of him that still didn’t like the kid getting out of his sight.

Looking at Grogu to give himself a few extra seconds, he finally sighed.

“I need you to watch the kid for a few days.”

***

Boba’s palace loomed above him as he walked the path to the door. He’d known that, after leaving them on Nevarro, Boba and Fennec were headed for Tatooine, and he’d suspected they were aiming for a hostile take-over of Hutt space, but seeing it for himself was a different matter.

He’d never been overly involved in the Hutts, despite taking a bounty or two from them in the years he’d been working. The Guild were mostly indiscriminate in their clientele, and those who could pay got the job done, but the Hutts had always preferred a more direct approach to hiring hunters. The Guild gave bounty hunters some protection and some insurance of payment, but there were many people who scorned even that veneer of legitimacy.

The risk hadn’t seemed worth it to Din, not with the Covert needing a steady supply of funds. Too many of those who did run with the Hutts ended up space dust.

He knocked one solid fist on the door, the resulting echo loud enough to hear even though the thick stone. As he waited, he found himself missing the familiar weight of Grogu hanging off his front, and it was only through sheer force of will that he stopped himself fidgeting at where the kid would have been sitting were this any other job.

The doors opened with a creak and reaching shadows beneath the dual suns. Stepping into the cool shade was a relief, if only a minor one, though Din had long since gotten used to the feel of heated metal.

On the other side, a silver protocol droid awaited, gesturing for him to follow.

He’d been in the palace back when it had been Jabba’s, just the once, and despite the many turnovers in leadership since it had barely changed. Having someone more permanent filling the power vacuum Jabba’s death left would do Tatooine and surrounding systems some good. Din was under no illusions that Boba Fett would let himself be removed easily. Nor would Fennec, for that matter.

As if summoned by the thought, Fennec slipped from the dark of a side hallway and crossed in front of him to stand by the droid, whom she dismissed with a jerk of her head and a low, “I’ll take him from here.”

Without moving on, she took him in with dark eyes, a sweep up and down that he knew catalogued his weapons and how fast he could get to them. Rather than being taken as a threat, Din instead felt assured- for Fennec not to just shoot him on sight meant the offer was, at least in part, legitimate. Her acknowledgment of his threat level to his face and her choosing to escort him herself was a sign of respect, and a subtle reminder of what he owed her.

She’d call in her dues eventually, he knew, but she’d leave the kid out of it. Even on the bridge of the cruiser when she’d held a blade to Din’s neck and needed to keep Gideon’s attention she’d left the kid out of it, which had been the only reason Din had chosen to trust her in the end.

They survived, so he’d chosen right, but he still wondered sometimes how tempted she’d actually been to betray them. Her words had been convincing enough for Gideon, after all.

She didn’t take more than that moment before turning on her heel and continuing down the hallway, her rifle bouncing against the backs of her knees on every second step.

He followed her in silence. The closer they got to the main chamber, the busier it was; hunters and disreputables of all shapes and species lined the walls and filled the alcoves, pausing in their discussions to stare at them as they walked past.

Din shifted his hand that much closer to his blaster as the people behind them slowly began conversing again, a vacuum of quiet that stuck to their heels and only dissipated when their strides took them further down the hall.

Fennec didn’t seem to care, though Din knew she noticed. Whether the silence was for him or for her was an entirely separate and unanswerable question, though it entertained him to wonder.

A half-spiral of steps roughly cut into the hard-packed sand ended the hallway and opened up into the wide chamber Jabba had used for conducting business.

The atmosphere was more somber than when Din had been there last- the Hutt’s incessant music and half-clad slaves replaced by the low bustle of activity and sound as people traded in their completed job chips for credits and argued heatedly over debts, bets and whether or not a severed limb was proof enough of death.

A tri-horned humanoid in the corner was busy counting piles of peggats; two astro-droids rolled around the room taking names and details as people lined up to wait their turn at the spread of tables in the middle of the room; and there, a solid mark of green beskar amid the chaos, Boba Fett sat overlooking it all.

They’d kept the throne in the upheaval, Din noted. It added an air of scrutiny, as though every move was being watched and reported on, and as Din swept his head from one side to the other and noted those watching him and those studiously looking away he realised the illusion, though effective, was unnecessary.

Boba didn’t need vidcams on every inch of his new domain. He had a palace full of people looking to trade up in his esteem and a name that meant something in the circles he ran in. He wasn’t untouchable, but Din suspected that he’d accounted for that. From where he stood, Din could see more than five hidden blasters and at least three covert guards in the throng, and beskar alone made for pretty good protection from most murder attempts.

Boba noticed him a second after he’d entered, focus drawn to the shine of silver against sand-yellow wall, and stood up to greet him. At his move, the room froze, but upon seeing his attention lay on Din and not themselves the vendors quickly picked up the slack to prevent being caught out. The customers and clients were a bit more reluctant, but business and a fear of being short-changed eventually drew them back.

Din walked up the throne and clapped their forearms together, as he had with Ary. Boba’s helmet tilted to the side in invitation and they slipped out to a back room, Fennec taking his place on the throne with a lazy sprawl that seemed to terrify the room’s occupants.

Beneath his own helmet, Din allowed himself a smile. Reputations were difficult things to build and easy things to lose; despite her sabbatical, it seemed Fennec had managed to keep hers or develop one equally as useful.

Since showing Grogu his face, Din had been noticing his own expressions more- he’d perfected the toneless voice early in his armour, and body language was as imperfect a form of communication as any, but he’d fallen out of the habit of controlling what his face did when there was no one to see it. His expressions had been only his for so long, he’d forgotten how to use it to communicate and not just emote.

Grogu didn’t mind- every new reaction only incited curiosity and delight, and the kid had learned fast that Din was not nearly as good at controlling his face as he was his voice. Frequently, when Din was trying for stern, the kid would just tug at his helmet until he could see his expression and know how serious Din actually was.

That did make enforcing rules difficult- even when the kid did something he wasn’t supposed to, or categorically refused to go to bed before Din himself, as soon as the helmet was off and the kid was cooing at him there was no hope in the galaxy for a frown. The little womp-rat knew his own cuteness and made full use of it.

Din didn’t really mind; when it was just their clan of two, resting between jobs or going through Grogu’s lessons, Din was rarely anything but happy, and Grogu didn’t need to see his face to know that. Still, out of all his expressions, the kid was probably most familiar with his smile.

Once they were alone, Boba pulled off his helmet with a _tch_ sound of beskar unclipping, and laid it on the shelf by the door. Din indulged his own discomfort and looked at the room they stood in rather than his still-taboo feeling uncovered face of another Mandalorian.

If the main hall was where most of the above-board business occurred, the side room they’d entered offered a very different set of opportunities. Weapons hung racked from floor to ceiling, everything from blasters to ceremonial staffs, and a galactic map across the room read trade and smuggler’s routes between planets all along the outer rim.

When he stepped closer to look, Din noticed a few hyperlanes that even he wasn’t familiar with- back-water things from planets whose names he barely recognised. Neither their existence nor their secrecy surprised him, Hutt resources being what they were. Hyperlanes could win wars and topple planets; for Boba to bring Din here, surrounded by weapons and information he could use to harm, was an intentional declaration of trust. Boba was making a real attempt at evening the playing field to open negotiations. 

“I take it the job’s real, then?” He didn’t turn around to ask, expecting Boba to forgive his haste if what he’d said was true.

At his back, Boba sighed.

“Straight to formalities, then. At least give me a click to get a drink first.”

Glass clinked against glass behind him, and still Din just took in the room, walking slowly past wall-racks and shelves to appease his own curiosity and well-worn paranoia. When possible, Din liked to know what he had at his back before agreeing to a job. Though he trusted Boba more than most, old habits that had saved his life before died slowly, and rarely painlessly.

When he was satisfied with his perusal of the room, Din finally turned and took the empty seat across from the other hunter. Boba’s drink left a smear of blue across his upper lip that he wiped with the back of his gloved hand, before settling it on the table and flipping a fob beside it.

Din didn’t reach out to take it just yet. Instead, he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, exuding a nonchalance he didn’t really feel.

Half of bounty-hunting was appearing less eager than you were- while talking to clients it got you better rates, while on the job desperation only fueled suspicion in the locals and the target, and, though most of what they did was legal with Empire and Republic both, there was a lot to be said for keeping calm during inspections and planetary border crossings.

Boba watched him, amusement in the twist of his lips upwards, but they both knew what their stakes were in this. They didn’t let the silence become a battle- stubbornness was something they had excess of and no time for.

Boba, acknowledging that it was his offer that drew Din to Tatooine, inclined his head and spoke first.

“Where’s your kid? I figured you’d be attached at the hip.”

Din leaned forward to pick up the fob, rubbing it between his fingers absent-mindedly as he answered.

“With a friend. Bringing him here didn’t seem like a good idea.” He didn’t bother explaining further. Boba was a hunter, if an honourable one, and he knew their trade. Imps had had no problems working with the Hutts before, and neither would the Hutts refuse dying and fringed remnants of an empire that could pay. The Guild could not have been the only ones they contacted, and in their line of business contacts were hoarded even once a job fell through.

If anybody were to know if Gideon wasn’t the only Imp with plans for Grogu, it would be someone in the palace.

“What you said, over your holo-” Din began, an uneasy half-start of a question that was interrupted before he could finish it.

“It’s true. We received a job from Imperials on Lotho Minor two days ago. They refused to share any details over holo, except that they’re willing to pay, and that they can pay with beskar.”

Din exhaled slowly and tilted his head down to look at the fob in his hand. Beskar was a rare find in the galaxy, even with the fall of the empire. So much of their people’s armour had been melted down and traded, sold to all corners as trinkets and statues for those who could afford the price and desired the rarity.

What remained was kept as currency, and used still in the right circumstances. In the almost decade since the Purge, Din had only received Beskar twice upon completion of a job- the first was his adult armour upon taking the Creed and successfully finishing his first mission; the second, as payment for the kid that became his foundling and his clan.

If there was even the smallest chance that he could reclaim a part of their stolen culture, Din knew he was going to take it. He’d almost made the worst decision of his life and left Grogu behind once for it; even with his Tribe out of reach, he couldn’t refuse.

Boba would have known this when he reached out with the job. He would have been counting on it.

Din, despite his initial instinct to pretend disinterest, didn’t even try to barter.

“What do you get out of this?”

Boba’s answering smile was vicious, though not, Din thought, aimed at him.

“Lotho Minor’s a junk world, mostly occupied by droids. It’s right on the edge of mid-rim, and it’s near some planets I have…” He paused, a deliberate choice for emphasis rather than hesitation, “Interest in. I don’t need the Republic sniffing around if the Imps aren’t smart enough to not yell their location to the nearest gunship. I want it cleared, and I don’t much care how. With beskar on the line, you seemed the safest bet. I’d go myself, but things aren’t quite stable enough here yet.”

Din rolled the words around in his mind for traces of untruth and found nothing, though he admired Boba’s choice of vulnerability at the end. Risky, if Din had had any desire to take his place, to own up to instability and potential weaknesses in his rule, but Boba knew as well as he that he didn’t.

Taking a job from the other man reminded him of Greef- at a certain point, both parties knew each other too well for any of the common tricks to work.

To that end, and due to their mutual respect, Din suspected Boba was telling the truth. Still, he knew how the game was played.

“And your percentage of the beskar payment?”

“60%.”

Din almost wished he could glare at him bare-faced. The effect wasn’t quite the same through metal, even with a scoff.

“10.” He countered.

“50.”

“15.”

“50.” Boba’s smile got bigger. Neither of them knew how much, if any, beskar was actually at the end of the job, but Din found himself enjoying the bartering regardless. It was certainly more fun when you weren’t worried about having a shiv stuck between your ribs.

“20. Last offer. And you get first pick for anything else valuable I think is worth taking.”

Boba appraised him, before nodding sharply.

“Deal.”

Business completed, they both relaxed back in their chairs, and Boba picked up his drink again.

Din let his curiosity get the better of his silence.

“So tell me. The fabrics, the slaves, the music- did you keep the pit rancor in the redecorating?”

***

Lotho minor, as Boba had so eloquently explained, was a junk world.

Din, alone in the ship for the first time since they’d been given it, found himself turning to point things out to Grogu through the window before he remembered and stopped mid-motion. The kid's safety seat seemed too big in the empty co-pilot’s chair.

The leaning towers of shifting metal reached as far as the horizon when he dropped out of orbit and finally breached the gaseous cover of the planet, a never-ending sea of rusted silver that made it practically impossible to find landmarks or oddities to orient himself, even if he'd been able to see through the red haze that spiraled from the ground and the occasional toxic pool.

Sporadic clearings, free of debris, broke up the monotony as he passed above them, but they could only be seen for a half-second from directly above.

It was a good place for a trap.

He double-checked the coordinates, shifted the ship’s flight path slightly to face the rising sun, and took deep, steady breaths as he moved his blaster to his lap in preparation for landing.

Grogu had not been happy about having to be left behind. 

Before leaving Tatooine, Din had returned to update Peli and say goodbye, his one concession to the anxiety stirring in his gut at their imminent separation.

Din had endured a good five minutes of the silent treatment before the kid had forgiven him and clung to his armour, and only reiterated promises that he would return soon and a distraction via metal ball got the kid to release him.

Frankly, Din would have preferred to have Grogu with him as well, but there were too many things that could go wrong for his liking. The fewer people that knew about Grogu the better, in the long run, and when he'd had a suitable, feasible, and _safe_ alternative so close… well. A resource like that could have made all the difference many times during their misadventures, and Din would have been only been indulging his own desire for closeness over the kid's safety to ignore it.

Even then, it would only be for a few days, and Peli had assured him she didn’t mind kid-sitting as long as she got payment at the end, though even that insistence had seemed more performative than legitimate.

When he’d picked the kid up for the last goodbyes, Grogu had poked one claw into the brow of his helmet and stared at him through the visor, and Din had suddenly been struck by the distinct but foreign thought that if he didn’t come back, Grogu was going after him.

It was the nicest threat Din had ever received. Even if he didn’t understand how the kid did it, he knew with a bone-deep certainty that probably should have scared him that the conviction had been both not his own and his son’s specifically.

The Jedi- Ahsoka- had done something similar with Grogu, he remembered. Exchanged thoughts and feelings through the Force. Din didn’t know whether he should hope that that meant Grogu didn’t need training to develop his powers, or fear that his powers would soon grow out of control.

At that moment, he’d simply rested his forehead against the kid’s and promised once more to return. He trusted Grogu, and that meant trusting his abilities.

All the same, he’d need to start practicing with the kid eventually- even if it was only throwing that silver ball around, the extent of Din's experience with Jedi training- but in the privacy of his own head Din could admit he’d been avoiding it.

He was not a Jedi, nor could he understand or teach their tricks, but he knew the importance of a decimated culture. He hadn’t wanted to presume the right to something that wasn’t his, but as the weeks had gone on with no sign of a Jedi willing to train Grogu and every indication that Grogu’s powers weren’t waiting to be taught, Din had begun to worry. Had begun to worry _more_.

This last development made his mind up for him; at the very least, among his teachings of the resol’nare, Din could teach the kid the importance of restraint and practice. Some things, whether for combat skills or magic powers, were universal.

The ship settled with a dull thud on a tiny, empty stretch of barren land, surrounded on all sides; the exact coordinates Boba had given him for meeting his client. Din shook himself back to focus. He’d flown and landed on instinct, but he couldn’t afford to be distracted going into potentially hostile negotiations.

Boba was expecting him to make them hostile, actually. Din just needed a clearer idea of what the Imps wanted and what they had before he could make a workable plan.

His goal was two-part; verify the existence or lack thereof of the beskar, acquiring it if he could, and clear out the base with _extreme_ prejudice.

Beneath his helmet, Din smiled. Out of all of his missions and jobs, he had enjoyed very few. He was good at his job and had been since he first started, and usually, that was enough, but once in a hundred fobs something came along that promised more than just payment and the next job at the end.

He'd learned to listen well to that instinct. It had never let him down before, though it rarely was what he'd expected.

Grogu attested to that.

The clearing he’d landed in was just big enough for his loaned ship, debris and junk piled the edges until he couldn’t see over the front stack from his place in the cockpit. Had his ship been a length longer or his hand a dash unsteadier he wouldn’t have made it; the landing pad was made for discretion over functionality, and he suspected they didn’t receive a lot of visitors.

Din checked the blaster in his lap again, grabbed the fob from where it was hooked into navigation, and made his way through the back of the ship to the outer door.

Jumping down and locking the ship behind him took only a second but, when he turned around, a welcoming committee stood where before there had been only empty air.

Through years of experience, Din didn’t immediately shoot the three Imps for startling him, but he did settle his weight back into his heels and give himself a second to recalibrate. Even with the extra height the ship had given him, he’d seen no sign of paths or usable trails.

At floor-level, it seemed as though the Imps had simply appeared from thin air. Din didn’t like it. Force-magic was one thing, but long-standing enemies with tricks up their sleeves never meant anything good.

The trio looked human to his eyes, as Imps almost always were, and had the gaunt cheeks and ill-fit clothes of people surviving on emergency half-rations and spite.

One of them- the one in front- cautiously waved him over. They were dressed all in black, an officer’s uniform pressed to Imperial perfection, but a quick glance at poorly sewn hems and indiscrete stains told him a lot about the state of their affairs.

Five years was a long time. Din couldn’t imagine a back-water unimportant way-station such as this held much priority for those Imps still providing supplies and assistance. He would have been surprised to find out they’d received any communications from their Empire since it had fallen, even if it defied explanation that they could survive without.

Din had learned it was better never to underestimate desperate people. But he could take advantage of it.

In response to the wave, Din raised the fob up to their eye-level and twisted it to show his access codes. Boba had set him up with some temporary identification that linked him with the Hutts, though it’d only be useful for this one job, and wouldn’t exactly pass muster if anyone here had heard about the change in leadership.

Din was counting on their isolation, and their reluctance to involve outsiders in their business. A well-maintained base could have hidden for years on Lotho without any fear of discovery- having seen the planet for himself, Din was more inclined to believe in the legitimacy of their request for help.

Nobody who could avoid it drew attention to themselves like this when they’d already lasted five years and much of the initial fevered hunt for Imperials. The galaxy was a big place- before their acquisition of the cruiser’s database, many of the New Republic ministers had lost interest in wasting resources trawling for old enemies when they could instead bicker amongst themselves.

Whatever it was that they wanted him from, Din suspected he was their last hope.

The leader sized him up and nodded, a cue the other two must have been waiting on as they took their places at his sides. Din tilted his helmet down slightly at the gesture, open to client interpretation, and the Imp gave him a too-large, too-cheerful smile.

“A simple escort, Mandalorian. The Hutts have long been friends of the Empire, and we have no desire to risk that working relationship.” Their voice was strident, rough, harsh like somebody who’d been yelling orders with no means of having them fulfilled but determined to show face in front of an outsider.

He stepped into stride beside them all the same as they did an about-turn around the nearest trash heap into an alley invisible from the air, their back-up trailing just behind and caging him in until his ship fell from view and all he could do was keep walking. The air sat heavy and foul-tasting on his tongue when he breathed in, but it was better than the smell.

“You understand reasonable precaution, I’m sure, and a certain level of necessary secrecy, being what you are-”

Din didn’t tense, exactly, but he did grimace beneath his helmet. He couldn’t have said whether they meant a bounty hunter or a Mandalorian, but given the promise of beskar and the Imp’s naming of him upon his arrival he was leaning, however reluctantly, toward the latter.

It didn’t endear him towards them, to have his people’s greatest sorrow thrown out by one of those who condoned it. It seemed all the Imps he’d met were desperate to remind him why he could never, ever trust them.

“And our base operates on the highest classified level within the Empire, which does allow us a certain leeway in our operations and requirements, which we, of course, conduct with the highest decorum-”

The angle of the sun and height of the walls around them meant they were mostly cast in shadows, ochre-metal and scrap not doing much to retain the light, but effective at bouncing his client’s voice back at him trifold. Their pathway cut in junk allowed only for one abreast, but they couldn’t have walked more than a hundred-odd paces before coming to a door that seemed set in the very junk heap itself.

His guide let out an exhale- relief or anticipation Din didn’t know, and he tightened his grip on his blaster in preparation for what lay on the other side- and twisted to type the code in a passbox hidden to the side. Twelve digits, the first four of which Din caught, as cylinders clicked into place and the door creaked unsteadily open to reveal an even narrower, sloping passageway. It was dark, dug into the rock of the planet itself, and lit at the other end by a torch he could have mistaken for a light-bug in the distance.

Old-fashioned, borderline antique. A security system like that, generally used only for outer-rim private vaults that didn’t have access to droids, meant they were in far worse trouble than he could have hoped for.

If this was a trap, they’d certainly gone all out on setting the stage.

Din sighed so quietly his modulator couldn’t pick it up- an old and well-used trick- before striding forward into the darkness behind the Imp.

The last one in pulled the door shut behind them, a barely audible thud, and Din made his steps likewise light and soundless. He didn’t look down and telegraph his unease with being unable to see the floor they walked on, but each step he took was careful and his arms were tensed and ready to brace himself if he was tripped.

Their slope got steeper for a dozen paces and then abruptly leveled out, and Din was somewhat relieved to see that what he’d assumed was a normal torch was actually half again the size, as they reached the end of the tunnel in quicker time than he’d anticipated. The shadows had thrown him off- Din decided it was probably by design.

Then another door, sleek metal this time, and they came out onto a hallway much more alike to what Din would have considered the traditional Imperial base. A few troopers walked past, some blatantly ogling as he stepped in, and were quickly ushered on by their compatriots.

It was a storage room they stood in; or at least, it had been once. Besides the few Imps whose jobs took them there, working patrol or sitting on boxes tapping away on their screens, it was empty.

Scuffs and dents had made their home on every floor and foot-height wall- even the architecture had taken the hit for the long years of isolation. Nothing had been left behind that could be removed or gouged off, sold or used to another purpose when something inevitably broke.

If Din had stumbled upon this on his own, he would have thought it abandoned.

A throat cleared behind him; he turned to see the same Imp who’d led him to the base throw back their shoulders and tilt their chin in a poor attempt at intimidation. Even before meeting a Jedi, an ex-Mand’alor and a Grand Moff, Din had run in circles an Imp like this couldn’t imagine in their worst assumptions of the galaxy’s seedy underbelly.

He hadn’t spoken yet since arriving. Impressions were half of getting paid instead of murdered when a job was done.

And some people, once they began talking, said things in err and nerves they hadn’t meant to. If he let the Imp speak, meander, lose their nerve, he could learn something vital.

Cara’d told him that his helmet, combined with silence, could be a very effective interrogation technique; though, she’d added smugly, it had never worked on her even before they’d been allies.

“You’ll want to know more about the job, I expect?” A flick of the wrist and the two accompanying Imps- guards?- left, though only to the patrol at the far wall to gather up reinforcements before returning to stand at attention.

Four troopers, two bare-faced guards, and one Imp Lieutenant trying to fill too-big boots.

Din would have been insulted, had he thought they had anybody else to spare.

The Lieutenant seemed to be waiting for a response, so Din nodded once, little more than a rough inclination of his head. He didn’t take his hand away from his belt, but rested it instead no more than a second’s dash from his blaster.

“And we are assured a measure of secrecy in this transaction? Your contact promised to keep our deal away from the more… official records. We require, as part of the bounty and in return for payment given, subtlety. We would hate to have to follow up with the Hutts if this was not maintained.”

Din didn’t imagine they’d be following up with anything when he was done, let alone empty threats, but he let the Imp take his silence as agreement.

“Right. Yes. Well, now that that’s settled, we’ll take you to Control.”

The ceiling above them creaked, old vents and pipes complaining about misuse and lack of maintenance. His client shot an anxious glance upwards, and then immediately tried to cover it with a scowl, but they weren’t the only one to do so; many of the other officers didn't attempt to hide their resulting unease.

Control, as they’d called it, was little more than an empty office, hastily cleared of furniture except the desk melded to the wall. The Imps watched as he took it in, and the Lieutenant was quick to rush to its defense in a manner that only spoke of their inexperience.

“It’s a temporary measure. We’ve had some-” A catch in the back of their throat, swallowing the words they would have said, “Mechanical failure. Our control room is currently inhospitable to life. We have our engineers working round the shifts to get it fixed.”

Under his helmet, Din’s eyebrows rose. Inhospitable to life?

He didn’t have time to wonder long before the Imp continued, slumping back to sit on the desk. Their almost-slip did wonders for their control; their voice, when it came again, had twisted back into the Imperial Command, sounding far more settled than they had yet.

“Essentially, Mandalorian, we have a saboteur. Someone in this base is actively working to destroy it, and us, and whether that being is flesh or mechanics has yet to be determined. In return for its removal by you, we will be happy to provide you with our stores of Beskar, carefully kept and hidden here.

It does, of course, belong with one of your kind, for the small price of ridding us of our pest. Currently, within these walls, we have one camtono’s worth- hidden elsewhere on the planet are five more.”

Perhaps the Imp expected him to be surprised, even shocked, for they continued with an edge Din hadn’t heard from them before.

“We are not stupid, Mandalorian. Upon completion of the job to our satisfaction, and not a moment before, we will fetch you your reward. The Empire is gracious to those deserving of it.”

Din ensured none of what he felt could be read on his body. Six camtonos of pure beskar. A find like that could fully armour a dozen foundlings, could keep their tribe for _years_ \- no, Din reminded himself. He wasn’t doing this job for his tribe, wherever they were. He had no immediate considerations for any outside of his clan.

But still. Everything in him lurched at the possibility of reclaiming the beskar. Six camtonos. It would be the biggest stash he’d ever heard of since the Purge, worth money beyond comprehension, worth more than this entire base.

Far more. Far, far more than any bounty hunter, even him. For a once-off, find and recover job on a tiny base.

Things that were too good to be true often were.

“I’d need to see it first.” He said, and the Imp twitched like they’d assumed he couldn’t speak at all and were thus unsure of where the demand had come from.

They recovered quickly, assuring him of its validity while sending one of the troopers out to bring it back for his inspection. In the waiting, they thankfully didn’t try and draw him into conversation, instead narrating the background to the job as though they'd never heard of the no-questions-asked rule regarding bounty hunting.

“Since the Fall, we’ve been entirely off the grid; no arrivals, no departures, and absolutely no contact. Lotho Minor is all but abandoned, and during the Empire’s reign we kept base here to store and defend precious artifacts and objects of value, which made our secrecy all the more vital.” A pause, as though to drive home the significance of what they were saying, as though Din’s greatest responsibility was to an Empire that massacred his people.

Beyond even desperation, this Imp was just plain stupid. Even had Din been, as they believed, sent by the Hutts, there was no Empire left to protect them from being stripped of all valuables and left for dead on a forgotten world. If they had a fraction of what they claimed, the Hutts would have burned the base to the ground to get it.

Din was, uncharacteristically, starting to feel as though he was the kinder option.

“We would have continued as before, except-” The trooper returned in the middle of their sentence, swinging a grey camtono at their side that landed on the desk with the dull noise of something heavy and unwieldy being dropped without ceremony.

The Imp blocked Din’s view as they opened it, and it was only when they stepped back that Din could finally see inside. Impatience and anticipation made his shoulders tense and stomach turn.

Piles of shining silver.

He reached out almost unheedingly to pick one of the pieces up, noting the reciprocal shifting of the troopers around him, and blocked everything out to curl his fingers around the ingot in his palm.

It gave slightly beneath the pressure, remaining cool despite his body heat, and shone iridescently when he twisted it beneath the harsh lights. The Imperial stamp, as always, a claim of ownership to something they had no right to.

Din felt as though he was trembling, though he knew he wasn’t. His hands were as steady as they always were.

He considered his options. One camtono was nothing to scoff at. He could slide out his blaster, eliminate the room, set his explosives, take the beskar and leave, no risk involved.

But the possibility of recovering more... the Imp might not have much of a survival instinct, but if they were lying they had one kriff of a good bluff. He’d never find the other five on his own, not surrounded as they were by junk and fog, not even if he had a lifetime to search.

“Four times in the last two weeks our systems have been compromised, Mandalorian. Life-support systems failing, planetary toxins in rooms they had no business being in, doors refusing entry commands. Our Commander and two ensigns are in critical condition because the room they were in was flooded in the last acid rain-fall just three days ago. In the weeks before, things we could not afford to lose began going missing, and no amount of searching has turned them up. Someone on this base is a traitor, and _you_ have been hired to find them.

Staff will cooperate to any extent necessary in your search, and you will have two troopers at your call. We expect results in three days-”

The recent removal of their Commander explained this Lieutenant and their inexperience, but Din didn’t let them continue posturing. A base like this, old and decrepit, was bound to show the strain. Things broke down or glitched or got a virus, and tired people misplaced things.

It wasn’t impossible that the base actually had an insurgent on the inside, or that somebody had snuck in recently without being noticed- but after five years of regulated, repetitive activity, someone would have noticed any ill-content or any stranger.

Not impossible, just highly unlikely.

Din wasn’t an engineer by any means, but he had some experience keeping things together past the date they should have broken. If it was a person, or a droid, or the more mechanical fault he half-expected, that still gave him three days to come up with a plan of action. If he had to, he could always just run with the base's limited beskar later.

He hoped fervently that he wouldn’t. The desire to find his tribe, his people, had been a building one since he’d last left his Armourer on Nevarro, and had itched unpleasantly when he stumbled across Bo Katan and, later, Ary. He’d put it off with good reason, but ever since the cruiser he’d found himself leaning more and more towards him and Grogu embarking on a second, ostensibly more hopeful, search. With the latest potential for assured jobs all over the Outer Rim, it wouldn't even be out of the way.

If there truly was that much beskar to be recovered, he couldn’t in good conscience not return it to his people. And Bo Katan wasn’t exactly fond of him.

Din knew he would have gone looking for his tribe eventually, sudden beskar or no, but its appearance was a reminder of what he owed to his tribe now that his kid was no longer in danger.

“I’ll take the job.” He said, inviting no comment, and carefully placed the ingot back among the others. The sides of the camtono curved closed, and Din watched as the troopers packed it up and left the room, the sergeant an unsmiling figure of self-satisfaction at his front.

Time to go hunting.


	3. The Saboteur

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clan Mudhorn meets a child.

It took Din just under four hours to explore the entire base, every anteroom and bunk, familiarising himself with potential exits- discovering that his options were either the main entrance or sticking thermal detonators to the right walls and running for cover. Even with the base running on half-crew and the fact that most of the base’s appropriated goods and supplies had been condensed to a handful of rooms, it felt small. Cramped.

The sizing didn’t help- DIn had to duck to get through most of the doorways and half of the halls, stooping his shoulders to fit. It had clearly been designed around the planet and the junk, rather than the other way around. 

Jutting corners and steep steps threatened to catch him unawares; whenever he entered a room, the Imps in it left in a hurry, though he was more grateful for the peace.

The two troopers which had been assigned to him, virtually identical to every other one he’d seen, followed him diligently as he wandered, though Din got the indistinct impression they didn’t like that arrangement. They didn’t dare get physical, nor could he see their faces to read their expressions better, but his instincts were a constant warning siren whenever they got too close.

As their preferred method of helping him was hovering vainly at his shoulder and watching his every move, he’d had an ache in his head and hands itching for his spear from the first hour. Entering a new room inevitably caused a chain reaction- they tensed, he tensed, the room emptied, and then, only then, did Din actually get to look around.

What he saw was mostly storage, as the Imp had implied; a mix of enviro-controlled cases and plain old crates, with everything from stone tablets to books to animal furs so foreign he could hardly give them the name. He didn’t spend a lot of time cataloguing it- he’d have to before he left, to get a better idea of what was worth taking with his limited ship space, but that could wait until he had a better idea of the cause of all the malfunction.

After a few dozen rooms and long hours of rising tensions, the troopers began waiting for him at the doors to rooms rather than stalking his every step. It was an irrational relief Din felt when they did so, as it made no real difference, but it was relief all the same.

The Imp lieutenant had told him about their losses in supplies. They’d had food rations going missing, medical supplies halved without observable cause, a handful of the less-valuable Imperial war-goods vanished from their cases.

None of the rooms Din had searched had turned anything up- no hidden panels or entrances that someone could use to sneak in, and no sign of tampering. If it was a person, it could only be an inside job.

In the last room before the main hallway looped back around to where control used to be, Din was greeted by dozens of narrow, low-lying shelves, stacked floor to ceiling with fabric crates of rations. It was one of the fullest Din had seen, obviously not yet in frequent use. That just left him a lot of space to search. If he didn’t turn up anything here, his next step would be trying to chase down some of the Imps he’d seen avoiding him and get them chatting.

Din had made his way about halfway down the aisles, keeping a careful eye on the floor and lower walls for signs of infestation or rodents, when the ceiling creaked above him and something dropped abruptly to land by his feet in a sprawl of black cloth and energy.

He stared. The kid, unfolding herself to stand at almost stomach height, stared back at him. He would have cursed aloud were it not for the troopers standing only a few metres away.

Din glanced quickly to note their position at the other end of the hall and what was in their sightline; from where they stood, they wouldn’t see more than his helmet, the crates doing wonders at hiding them from view.

The kid was still staring at him, head tilted to the right and up, face blank and eyes unfocused, as though looking through him rather than at him. She wore an Imperial dress uniform that had clearly been stolen, sitting a size too big and swamping her shoulders, and trousers with rolled up legs almost to her scraped knees. A pair of laced black boots peeling apart at the sides protected her feet, and a few scraps of sewn fabric wove around her torso in a style Din only vaguely recognised as bandoliers.

Slim markings on her face and the pale yellow-green of her skin, though humanoid, betrayed her as Mirialan. She couldn’t have been older than eight years.

And she was hiding in the vents of an Imperial base on a junk world that hadn’t seen activity in half a decade.

Suddenly, her eyes refocused and filled with what Din could only call joy, especially when it combined with the wide grin she aimed at him as she began almost jumping up and down in her excitement.

“Oh _wow_ , I can’t believe I was right, the Force was telling me to wait and wait and now you’re here and did you know you’re glowing? It’s all warm and soft and loving, like a huge blanket, but also kind of scary. But I’m not even scared because I’m not trying to hurt you so I know it won’t hurt me, and you’re _here_!” As though she’d suddenly remembered him in her rambling, she jumped forward into his space and he had to dart out a hand to her shoulder to keep her upright when she stumbled.

Without notice to the hand on her shoulder or the weapons on his belt, the kid kept talking.

“I almost thought you were never going to come so I probably wasn’t as patient as I could have been but it’s okay, I forgive you for being late, it’s not your fault. You didn’t even know! You know?”

She paused, finally, still bouncing on her toes as she waited impatiently for his answer. Her hair, previously tucked away and tied in the collar of her shirt, bounced loose and got swept in her motion, curling wildly at every angle.

Din blinked, once, slow and intentional, and suddenly he could almost feel the recalibration of his plan as his thoughts unfroze and tripped into hyperspeed.

He spared the troopers one more look, daring them to move, before taking his hand back to brace against his knee as he crouched down to get closer to her height.

He didn’t quite know where to start with all she’d told him. The lingering silence as she fidgeted and stared at him urged him to speak, and quickly, before she started again and he lost his chance.

“Are you… a Jedi?” He hesitated even as he asked it, the question feeling insufficient, because from what he’d understood the Jedi had been hunted down far before this kid could have been born. But she’d mentioned the Force, and if entire coverts of Mandalorians had hidden in the wake of their Purge then why not a family of Jedi after theirs?

He didn’t get to fully feel the hope and fear that thought invoked- the possibility that his long search was over, which meant his time with his kid was _over_ \- before she shook her head, with a peel of laughter only muffled by her quick hand covering her mouth, letting only a few loose giggles escape.

Din wasn’t sure why the thought was so hilarious, but he had to force down his own sickening relief at her quick denial. 

“‘Course not! I’m Kai. And I’m only ten. Mama said I would have been a Jedi if there were Jedi to still take on padawans when I was a baby, but I’d have to be a padawan for a long, long, _long_ time first, like twenty years, so even if a Jedi had taken me as a padawan I’d still be ages away from being a Jedi myself.”

Din gave himself a single second to absorb all of that before continuing. Not a Jedi, but a potential Jedi? It was possible Din didn’t understand all that much about the Jedi way of life, if such a thing existed. Mandalorians had rites of passages, sure, and no founding or clan-born could take the Creed until they came of age, but the kids were still considered Mando’ade.

The idea of a people that didn’t do similarly, that had age or skill requirements to even take the name, unsettled him. 

Regardless, that was a problem and a consideration for another day. His focus now was on getting this kid as far away from danger as possible, if his rising suspicions about who’d been causing the disruptions on the base were true.

“Well, Kai, can I ask you where your guardians are? Your Mama, you said? Is she nearby?” Din made sure he kept his voice low and quiet, regretting the added intimidation factor of his armour that he’d appreciated earlier that day, though Kai herself seemed to have no such regret.

She seemed fascinated by it instead, hands twitching at her sides like she wanted to reach out and poke it, and it was with a distracted air that she answered.

“No guardians. And Mama’s dead. It’s just me.” It wasn’t said sadly, more matter of fact, as though reading something off of a holo. It still stung Din somewhere deep inside to hear it, like a scab suddenly tore open. He couldn’t have said whether it was the statement or the nonchalance that bothered him more; let alone the implied duration of her aloneness that gave her cause to be so casual with it.

Noticing her still absorbed expression, he held out his arm for Kai to see his braces better, and she eagerly followed the straps and edges with her fingers, not a trace of fear or apprehension in any motion.

He only stopped her when it looked like she’d discovered how to get it off, pulling away to retighten what she’d cleverly loosened. Kai didn’t complain or stop him, instead tucking her hands down behind her back, but the disappointment rolling off her in waves was so evident he felt obligated to explain.

“I’m a Mandalorian,” he said, half-expecting her to recognise what it meant, but she just waited patiently, rocking up to rest on the tips of her toes like a balancing act. “I follow a Creed. A religion. My armour is part of that, as are my weapons. It means I can’t ever take it off.”

A flash of Mayfield’s face.

“Except in very specific circumstances.” He amended, and thankfully despite his inexperience explaining it, Kai appeared satisfied with his answer. She did hum, a tuneless vibration, before slowly reaching out to touch the mudhorn on his shoulder, giving him plenty of time to pull away. He didn’t, letting her explore, surprised at his own nonchalance when he’d started fights before over adults taking similar liberties.

The children of Sorgan had been too nervous of him at first to attempt the same as she was, and were, by the time they were comfortable, too familiar with his preference for personal space to try. Grogu had been the exception, but then the kid always was.

“So it’s like my tattoos, then. They can’t ever come off of me, and they mean something important.”

Din was shocked at how quickly she’d grasped it when so many of his acquaintances had struggled to do the same, but his stronger reaction was relief. The analogy didn’t quite trace all the way- he could, and did, remove his helmet and armour in front of Grogu- but explaining the intricacies of Mandalorian culture and clans were far beyond his abilities at the best of times.

Hiding behind boxes of Imperial food rations with a kid- whom Din was quickly becoming convinced was the saboteur he’d been commissioned to find- was not one of those times. Conversations like that, and Din’s rising curiosity about the Jedi, could and would have to wait until they were somewhere safer.

Kai had stopped poking at his clan’s emblem while he was distracted to instead neatly cut open the side off of a nearby bag, meticulously removing and stacking ration squares until the pile came to just below her knee. Every movement was quiet, muffled in a way her clothes shouldn’t have been, and even crouching in front of her Din would have had a hard time hearing her without strain.

She kept shooting him tiny glances from behind her hair, half-second flicks of focus as though to reassure herself he was still there, before she carefully refolded the crate’s side to give the appearance of minor damage in transit rather than intentional theft.

Din felt vaguely nauseous at how _easy_ she made it look, mundane and routine, and it spoke to how long she’d been on her own that she’d developed those patterns and learned how to not get caught. Din would have been shocked to learn that those clever removals were discovered, let alone the cause of such concern.

No, if Kai _was_ the person causing all the trouble, Din had no doubt it was calculated and conscious on her part. Anyone who could sneak around undetected as she did only made waves when it suited them to.

A sling of fabric Din had originally mistaken for a belt was removed and filled with the rations to then be slung across her chest and shoulders- at full height, with Din kneeling on one knee, they were almost exactly at eye level.

Kai shuffled her feet, gaze firmly on the floor, and it took a few seconds before she raised her head up to meet his eyes again. She was good at that, he noted- people tended to avoid his visor or let their focus slip when talking to him, but from the very first sentence she had had no problem speaking directly to him.

Din had been spoiled for that recently, his contact list ever-growing with those people for whom him being Mandalorian was not a terrifying oddity, but simply a part of who he was. It was a nice feeling, Din decided, his chest warm. He’d never had it outside of his tribe before.

Her break from usual pattern made her nervousness all the more visible- for the first time in their entire conversation, Kai looked something almost akin to shy.

“You _are_ going to help me, right?” She began, halting and unsteady as though her voice had to work up speed to be assured, and Din felt his heart clench at her uncertainty. “The Force told me to wait and I _did_. Even when it was really, really hard. And then when it stopped telling me to wait I was scared it had gone away but really it just got quieter like it was waiting for something _too_.”

It was the audible ache in her voice that made him swallow against a wave of concern, the first sign of unease at however long she’d been on her own. Din couldn’t even imagine it. When he was a boy he’d had his parents; after, he’d had the Mandalorians who took him in and trained him. Even as a bounty hunter he’d been the face of his tribe in the galaxy, and had always known he’d have a place to go back to and people to protect and provide for.

With his Creed and his purpose, Din was occasionally lonely, but he was never alone.

Kai had not been offered the same, and Din felt acutely the disparity. If he’d survived the droid attack on his family without the Mando’ade, he didn’t know where he would have ended up. Or who he would have been.

Kai’s survival, and the fire in her eyes as she paced in front of him, was a testament to a strength she should never have had to discover.

“So I used an ident-card I stole to slice into the control room and destroy their codes and leave traps for them because maybe the Force wanted me to _do_ something and even if it didn’t I had to do _something_ , and stealing stuff was easy when I had the vents and they were so paranoid they kept locking all the doors like I couldn’t just force ‘em open again, like I need doors at all when I have my vents. But I still didn’t have a way off-planet, not with how hard it was to get here in the first place, and then _you_ showed up.” She said _you_ like it was an accusation. 

Any shyness she’d had asking her initial question had been burned away by defiance and certainty, her breath trembling on every fast exhale. Kai stood like she was taller than she was, hands in fists at her hips, and Din had the sudden, static-shock feeling that told him meeting her was not an accident.

“So you _have_ to help me. The Force says I can trust you and it can’t lie, even if you are working with them. And your armour is shiny and nice even through your glow and nothing at all like the bucket-heads’-” Old rebel slang for stormtroopers that had no place in the mouth of a ten-year old, what the _kriff_ , “And you have a ship and a gun and you feel scared but in the same way Mama used to get scared, like it’s not from me but for me.”

Din was struck silent once again, disconcerted by her observation and by the comparison she used, but Kai wasn’t done.

“And I heard you all talking about how they were going to pay you with metal like your armour and I can get it for you, I have lots of metal, I can even pay you more if you promise to take me away. So you have to help me.”

Well.

Din supposed at least he wouldn’t have to convince her of the necessity to get off-planet.

Most of what she said made no sense to him- the comments on his ‘glow’, the idea that the Force had somehow labelled him as trustworthy, the idea that this mystical energy Ahsoka had talked about was capable of direct communication at all- but he’d resigned himself to confusion the first time Grogu accomplished an impossibility and lifted a mudhorn a metre in the air. Compared to that, nothing Kai claimed sounded that far-fetched, and nor was it worth hesitation when the kid was all too-big, worried eyes waiting for his response.

Din nodded brusquely and, when that didn’t feel like enough, he cleared his throat and swore to her, “I’ll help you.”

Kai sagged when he agreed, a sigh of relief escaping before she could hold it back. All at once, the fight drained from her and she wrapped shaky hands around the strap of her pack, averting her eyes again.

Din leaned further back until he hit the crate behind him and slid down it to the floor; across from him, Kai darted a look and then gingerly copied the move. She didn’t quite seem to know what to do with her limbs- they sprawled ungainly until she pulled in her legs to her chest and hugged them tight.

Din sighed and let his head fall back softly behind him, staring sightlessly at the ceiling panels.

Three conflicting responsibilities in one job made him uncomfortable. The simpler things were, the less likely for them to go wrong; a hard-earned lesson that decades of experience had drilled into him. But he couldn’t ignore the reality, either.

He owed a debt of loyalty to his people, to Boba Fett, and to the newly discovered child who needed his help. The beskar, the base, the kid.

Din had learnt himself well enough since the last time he’d had to make a choice between finishing a job and protecting a child to know that Kai was the one thing of the three he would not later regret prioritising- if he had to, he could offer her a chance to leave right then and stand by his choice before his Creed without shame.

It would be the safe decision. It was even an easy one, despite how it sat in his gut like disappointment.

He did not regret his decision, but he regretted the circumstances that demanded its necessity. He’d have to accept it. Blowing up the base on his way out would be its own kind of satisfying.

Din raised his head to observe the cause of his conundrum. Kai was still sitting across from him on the hard dirt floor, hands picking at loose threads in her clothes with a viciousness that made no effort to hide her distaste for it. The ink on her face began above her brow and curled to rest just below her left eye, a simple tri-dot pattern no wider across than her thumb but stained a deep black.

Din had only met a handful of Mirialans in his time in the galaxy; they tended to keep to themselves, rarely active in the Outer Rim’s various spheres of influence, and beyond that fact of isolation he knew very little about their people. He certainly didn’t know how to get in contact with any, not to mention his pre-existing difficulty getting a hold of a Jedi.

Perhaps Ahsoka could take her on as an apprentice. Perhaps she could join Grogu when- if- they found another willing to train a foundling.

Din let his mind linger on the possibility only briefly- in the end, it was not his choice to make, but Kai’s. She wanted and needed a way off-world, and that Din could provide. Everything after that was up to her.

He told her as much, needing her to know the decision was entirely hers. Understandably, she hadn’t seemed to plan much in advance beyond escape.

“Can’t I just stay with you?” She asked, and Din marvelled and cursed at his own immediate, instinctive response of _yes_.

Grogu was one thing- barely more than a toddler, despite his age. Hardly planned for. There had been no time for negotiation or alternatives, not with the kid’s life at risk and Din the only available option with the skills and ship to keep him safe. Even then, the eventual plan was always reuniting him with his own people. His attachment had come later, equally unplanned, more unwise in the long run, but inevitable.

Naming the child as his own was a culmination of that attachment and that danger, and would always be defendable because of it. Din had had a choice, but not to bring the kid into his life. He hadn’t been putting Grogu more at risk than he would have been.

But with Kai... if she stayed with them...

He could drop her off on Nevarro, make her someone else’s responsibility before she became permanently his. Could offer her safe passage, provide her with somebody much more suitable and capable of taking care of her, not be more tempted to take her on as a foundling and add to his clan once more. Not drag her into the life he led when she had a chance at something more stable.

Grogu was stuck with him until the kid decided to say otherwise. Kai was not. Not yet.

Except that she’d asked. And Din had already gone through the mental adjustments of figuring out how to house and feed three people in a small ship on New Republic pay-outs.

It would be uncomfortable, dangerous, and definitely unwise; but it would be possible. Din tried to ignore the feeling rising in his chest that tasted a lot like hope. He needed to be the responsible one, and not sign her up to a life she didn’t know enough about to make a decision on.

“My life isn’t exactly safe, Kai. I don’t want to make you any promises I can’t keep.”

Kai nodded solemnly, a considering frown tightening her features and broadcasting her deliberation. Din was helplessly endeared by how seriously she took everything.

“Not breaking promises is important.” She allowed, though Din could tell she wasn’t entirely satisfied with his answer. “But my life now isn’t safe either. And the Force didn’t just tell me to get off-planet, it told me to wait for you, so obviously you’re important too.”

Din couldn’t help but be amused by how she said it, as though it was a simple reality he really should have thought about. He granted her the same deliberation in his response, despite that amusement, letting his voice go soft and contemplative. It was a challenge through the helmet, with all his practice being removing emotion from his voice, but he thought he managed.

“That’s a good point.” It had been. While she wasn’t in the same long-term danger Grogu had been when Din met him, Din couldn’t deny that her life as it was was full of risks. She was not unfamiliar with danger, but that didn’t mean she wanted to be Mando’ade.

The acknowledgment made her light up, grin returning and burying the frown, and Din almost physically felt his resolve melt beneath her joy.

“How about this,” He started, determined to come to a compromise before he completely gave in and promised to take her in as a foundling, better options be damned, “You can stay with me as far as Nevarro. I have friends there, people who can take care of you. You can think again when we get there and if you still want to come with me, we can talk about it then. Maybe you won’t like space that much. It’s not as exciting as it looks.”

Kai looked nothing less than disdainful at the last remark, and Din was sure he caught a quiet, “Like that’s going to happen.” mumbled beneath her breath, but leaned forward and held out her hand for him to shake all the same. Bemused at the old habit, he did. Her hand was scarred and calloused, but her grip was unwavering. She’d hold him to his word, of that he had not the slightest doubt.

Agreement completed, Kai bounced to her feet, all seriousness gone. That same remarkable silence clinged to her motions.

“So when do we get your metal?”

Din tilted his head, caught off guard by the sudden change in topic when half of his brain was still trying to convince him he could take care of a second foundling.

“I- What?”

Kai clicked her tongue impatiently. “Your metal, you know, the shiny silver stuff that’s the same as your armour. I saw them hide one of the ‘tonos in the kitchens and I heard them talk about others, but I don’t know exactly where they put them. They were going to pay you with it, right? I can help you find it!”

For some absurd reason, Din had assumed they were on the same page regarding the necessity to leave Lotho Minor behind as quickly as possible. The kid, judging by the excitement in her face and the rising energy in the air Din was most familiar with after Grogu ate too many frogs, had very different ideas about what they were going to do next.

He remembered her offer to pay him to get off-world, and thought he understood.

“Thank you, Kai, but you don’t have to pay me. I’ll take you to Nevarro anyway.” He gentled his voice, but the kid just looked at him askance like she didn’t understand why he was trying to reassure her. Din was equally confused, but determined to make her understand.

“I’d have to finish the job to get paid- which would mean turning you in. I’m not willing to risk it.”

Din didn’t exactly like it, having to leave the beskar behind, but he disliked the idea of putting the actual child at risk for its sake even more. He could, and frequently did, risk himself in his line of work, but he’d learned with Grogu what he was willing to chance- and the womp-rat was a much smaller, less obvious target than an energetic force-powered ten-year old.

There was no surety that he could protect her if he involved the Imps, not with however long he’d have to wait before they could bring in the beskar from where they’d stashed it. It would be close, of that he was certain, if only so that they could rush him off-planet as soon as possible after he finished the job.

But anything could happen in a few minutes, and the Empire wasn’t known for its mercy even before the base began running on martial law. Kai would be lucky to be only imprisoned if they caught her, and that Din couldn’t allow to happen.

Kai, it seemed, did not share his conviction.

“Well, that’s stupid.” Din couldn’t stop the short burst of laughter her statement produced, Kai’s unmistakable tendency towards bluntness out in full force, even as the girl in question crossed her arms and glared at him. “What? It is! I know it’s important to you, you said it yourself, and we can just pretend you’ve caught me and then you can get the metal and we can leave on your ship!”

At the thought of his ship, Kai lost some of her drive and began bouncing on her toes again. Her hair got caught in knots in front of her face, and she brushed it aside, irritation bleeding into her eagerness as she tied it off beneath her shirt. “Is it a big ship? Are there guns? Does it have hyperdrive? Can I drive it? What type is it?”

Din didn’t let himself be distracted as easily. His amusement had all but vanished at the image she’d described; the idea of using any kid as bait was a repugnant one, and he had to work to stop his tone from turning sharp- not from anger at her, but from his bone-deep disgust at the idea of putting her in that kind of risk.

“I appreciate the offer, but I’ve told you I’m not willing to risk it. I can get what’s in the kitchens and then we can leave.”

He tried the stern voice that occasionally worked on Grogu, attempting to inject the same level of finality that Kai seemed to project with every word. He wasn’t convinced of its effectiveness, especially when the kid just huffed at him and set her lips in an unmoving line, hands back at her hips.

Din pushed himself to his feet in the interim of waiting for her response- he was certain it would be an interesting one- and glanced back over to the door to ensure the troopers hadn’t moved during their discussion. They were exactly as before, still as stone, but Din’s internal clock was counting down until they lost patience. Experience told him that they had, at most, a few more minutes. Kai could not be in the main room when they came looking for him down the aisles.

Din had no idea how he was going to convince her of that when she looked like she was gearing up for a fight she had no intention of losing.

“No. This matters to you. You don’t have to use me for the job if you don’t want to, but you’re going to let me help. We can trick them easily! I know this base better than anyone and I can get to almost anywhere without being seen. They won’t expect me, and they won’t expect you to work with the person you’re paid to catch, but you’ll get all your metal, there’s no risk, and then we leave.”

The moment was tense enough that Din shouldn’t have smiled, but he felt himself doing so all the same. She reminded him of Grogu, a little- the same predisposition to doing exactly what she wanted, though not as effective at wearing him down without speaking.

For that matter, she reminded him a little of himself at that age- the fear of being seen as a burden, of not carrying his weight and proving himself an asset. If they left now, Kai would always know he’d given something up to get off her planet quickly, and even as it could stand as proof of care, he doubted she would see it that way.

He wouldn’t have. Not right away, and not for many years.

It was something he still struggled with. Din liked to be useful, to have purpose. In how much of Kai’s life so far had she been given opportunities to have the same?

Kai’s expression was all resolution, but Din knew the anxiety in her eyes as intimately as he knew his own face in the mirror. Din might not have demanded she prove herself, but that didn’t mean she didn’t feel the need to.

She’d come with him, he thought, if he insisted they leave now. It would probably take more time than they had, but she would.

But he understood her, and knew how much the Fighting Corps and giving back to the community that had saved him had mattered when he was in a similar position. Din couldn’t promise her a tribe, or even a people, but he could offer her this.

And if she did stay, if he took her on as a foundling, retrieving the beskar would be as much her responsibility as his in a few short years. She might not understand its significance to the Mando’ade right then, but she had gathered enough to know its significance to _him_.

And that had been enough for her to refuse to leave it behind.

At least the base was small and controlled. At least he could still mitigate the risk. At least she’d promised to stay out of the way.

He looked down at her- so kriffin’ small- and braced himself. “Okay. But you stay in the ceiling.” He pointed one finger at her, though it seemed to have as much of an effect as it had on Grogu, the one and only time he’d tried it. That is to say, absolutely none. Kai just grinned triumphantly up at him and Din let the last of his reluctance fade away. “What’s our plan?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we have it! The second of many of Din's soon-to-be-kids (does that count as a spoiler? not with these tags!), and the first Star Wars OC I've made. Also first of many, since there aren't that many canon Mandalorians around at 10 ABY, not to mention force-sensitive children. I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel here!
> 
> Regardless, I hope you've enjoyed meeting Kai, as she holds a special place in my heart, and stay tuned for next week's Chapter 4: The Confrontation!
> 
> As always, kudos', bookmarks and comments are very much appreciated, and I hope you've enjoyed this week's chapter. Ret'urcye mhi!

**Author's Note:**

> Look, this very quickly got out of hand, but fair warning; Luke Skywalker will be making an appearance eventually, and there may even be DinLuke though it'll be fairly small and probably up for interpretation, but there will be Mand'alor Din Djarin, a whole bunch of force-sensitive children (including our faves Rey and Finn because fuck the timeline), an overuse of Wookiepedia because I'm rocking that delicate balance between needing everything to be researched and accurate but also never having read any Star Wars comics, and probably still a whole lot of inaccuracies.
> 
> Updates whenever I get my act together but let's say once a week, every Saturday. Comments, kudos and bookmarks are always appreciated and I hope you enjoy.
> 
> Let me know what you think!
> 
> (Also, I will only currently be adding translations for the pure Mando'a- essentially any sentences without English or context that could help with understanding. If people really want to know the exact meaning for the assorted random words I'm planning on throwing in, I can find a way to do that in-text, but here's a link to the same dictionary that I use anyway if people feel like learning more as they go: http://mandoa.org/ )


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